Question

i have two queries being combined with a UNION ALL¹:

--Query 1
SELECT Flavor, Color
FROM Friends

 

--Query 2
SELECT Flavor,
    (SELECT TOP 1 Color
     FROM Rainbows
     WHERE Rainbows.StrangerID = Strangers.StrangerID
     ORDER BY Wavelength DESC
    ) AS Color
FROM Strangers

Both of which, of course, work fine separately, but when combined with a UNION ALL:

SELECT Flavor, Color
FROM Friends

UNION ALL

SELECT Flavor,
    (SELECT TOP 1 Color
     FROM Rainbows
     WHERE Rainbows.StrangerID = Strangers.StrangerID
     ORDER BY Wavelength DESC
    ) AS Color
FROM Strangers

The query fails with the error:

Msg 104, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if the statement contains a UNION operator.

How do i use an ORDER BY in a statement with a UNION ALL?

Copy-Pasteable Example

CREATE TABLE Friends (Flavor int, Color int)
CREATE TABLE Strangers (Flavor int, StrangerID int)
CREATE TABLE Rainbows (StrangerID int, Color int, Wavelength int)
go

SELECT Flavor, Color
FROM Friends

UNION ALL

SELECT Flavor,
    (SELECT TOP 1 Color
     FROM Rainbows
     WHERE Rainbows.StrangerID = Strangers.StrangerID
     ORDER BY Wavelength DESC
    ) AS Color
FROM Strangers
go

DROP TABLE Rainbows
DROP TABLE Strangers
DROP TABLE Friends

Server: Msg 104, Level 15, State 1, Line 2
ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if the statement contains a UNION operator.

Footnotes

• ¹Contrived hypothetical example. Or not.

See also

• SQL Query – Using Order By in UNION
• SQL UNION and ORDER BY
• SQL: Using Top 1 in UNION query with Order By
• Impact of ordering of correlated subqueries within a projection

Answer 1

A bit of a hack, but this will work.

CREATE TABLE Friends (Flavor int, Color int)
CREATE TABLE Strangers (Flavor int, StrangerID int)
CREATE TABLE Rainbows (StrangerID int, Color int, Wavelength int)
go

SELECT Flavor, Color
FROM Friends

UNION ALL

SELECT Flavor,
    (SELECT Color FROM 
        (SELECT TOP 1 Color, Wavelength
         FROM Rainbows
         WHERE Rainbows.StrangerID = Strangers.StrangerID
         ORDER BY Wavelength DESC
         ) AS Foo
    ) AS Color
FROM Strangers
go

DROP TABLE Rainbows
DROP TABLE Strangers
DROP TABLE Friends